Now it had floated up into the air again.
Other wizards had crowded into the room. The librarian was sitting under the table.
“If only we had some idea what is going on,” said Cutangle. “It’s the suspense I can’t stand.”
“Think positively, man,” snapped Granny. “And put out that bloody cigarette, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to come back to a room that smells like a fireplace.”
As one man the assembled college of wizards turned their faces towards Cutangle, expectantly.
He took the smouldering mess out of his mouth and, with a glare that none of the assembled wizards cared to meet, trod it underfoot.
“Probably time I gave it up anyway,” he said. “That goes for the rest of you, too. Worse than an ashpit in this place, sometimes.”
Then he saw the staff. It was—
The only way Cutangle could describe the effect was that it seemed to be going very fast while staying in exactly the same place.
Streamers of gas flared away from it and vanished, if they were gas. It blazed like a comet designed by an inept special effects man. Coloured sparks leapt out and disappeared somewhere.
It was also changing colour, starting with a dull red and then climbing through the spectrum until it was a painful violet. Snakes of white fire coruscated along its length.
(There should be a word for words that sound like things would sound like if they made a noise, he thought. The word “glisten” does indeed gleam oilily, and if there was ever a word that sounded exactly the way sparks look as they creep across burned paper, or the way the lights of cities would creep across the world if the whole of human civilisation was crammed into one night, then you couldn’t do better than “coruscate.”)
He knew what would happen next.
“Look out,” he whispered. “It’s going to go—”
In total silence, in the kind of silence in fact that sucks in sounds and stifles them, the staff flashed into pure octarine along the whole of its length.
The eighth colour, produced by light falling through a strong magical field, blazed out through bodies and bookshelves and walls. Other colours blurred and ran together, as though the light was a glass of gin poured over the watercolour painting of the world. The clouds over the University glowed, twisted into fascinating and unexpected shapes, and streamed upward.
An observer above the Disc would have seen a little patch of land near the Circle Sea sparkle like a jewel for several seconds, then wink out.
The silence of the room was broken by a wooden clatter as the staff dropped out of the air and bounced on the table.
Someone said “Ook,” very faintly.
Cutangle eventually remembered how to use his hands and raised them to where he hoped his eyes would be. Everything had gone black.
“Is—anyone else there?” he said.
“Gods, you don’t know how glad I am to hear you say that,” said another voice. The silence was suddenly full of babble.
“Are we still where we were?”
“I don’t know. Where were we?”
“Here, I think.”
“Can you reach out?”
“Not unless I am quite certain about what I’m going to touch, my good man,” said the unmistakable voice of Granny Weatherwax.
“Everyone try and reach out,” said Cutangle, and choked down a scream as a hand like a warm leather glove closed around his ankle. There was a satisfied little “ook,” which managed to convey relief, comfort and the sheer joy of touching a fellow human being or, in this case, anthropoid.
There was a scratch and then a blessed flare of red light as a wizard on the far side of the room lit a cigarette.
“Who did that?”
“Sorry, Archchancellor, force of habit.”
“Smoke all you like, that man.”
“Thank you, Archchancellor.”
“I think I can see the outline of the door now,” said another voice.
“Granny?”
“Yes, I can definitely see—”
“I’m here, Granny.”
“Can I smoke too, sir?”
“Is the boy with you?”
“Yes.”
“Ook.”
“I’m here.”
“What’s happening?”
Ordinary light, slow and easy on the eye, sidled back into the library.
Esk sat up, dislodging the staff. It rolled under the table. She felt something slip over her eyes, and reached up for it.
“Just a moment,” said Granny, darting forward. She gripped the girl’s shoulders and peered into her eyes.
“Welcome back,” she said, and kissed her.
Esk reached up and patted something hard on her head. She lifted it down to examine it.
It was a pointed hat, slightly smaller than Granny’s, but bright blue with a couple of silver stars painted on it.
“A wizard hat?” she said.
Cutangle stepped forward.
“Ah, yes,” he said, and cleared his throat: “You see, we thought—it seemed—anyway, when we considered it—”
“You’re a wizard,” said Granny, simply. “The Archchancellor changed the lore. Quite a simple ceremony, really.”
“There’s the staff somewhere about here,” said Cutangle. “I saw it fall down—oh.”
He stood up with the staff in his hand, and showed it to Granny.
“I thought it had carvings on,” he said. “This looks just like a stick.” And that was a fact. The staff looked as menacing and potent as a piece of kindling.
Esk turned the hat around in her hands, in the manner of one who, opening the proverbial brightly wrapped package, finds bath salts.
“It’s very nice,” she said uncertainly.
“Is that all you can say?” said Granny.
“It’s pointed, too.” Somehow being a wizard didn’t feel any different from not being a wizard.
Simon leaned over.
“Remember,” he said, “you’ve got to have
Their eyes met, and they grinned.
Granny stared at Cutangle. He shrugged.
“Search me,” he said. “What’s happened to your stutter, boy?”
“Seems to have gone, sir,” said Simon brightly. “Must have left it behind, somewhere.”
The river was still brown and swollen but at least it resembled a river again.
